Kurisutaru
by Khrysalis
Summary: [Very much AU]Every generation the Dark Seed Returns to devour the world Kurisutaru. Every generation the World Redeemer Kaoru and her protector Battousai are reborn to fight it.
1. The Three Return

1  
The Three Return

In Rupta Abbey, sheltered by the great forest, a highly anticipated birth was taking place.

Far away, much deeper into the Rupta Forest, there was occuring another eagerly-awaited birth.

Both mothers went into labor at the same moment, right at the strike of the third hour. Both babes were carried from their mothers' wombs at the same moment, in the middle of the fourth hour.

The healthy birth of the child in the abbey was heralded by jubilation and celebration. As the newborn howled with her first breath of air, they turned her over and found her markings. It was she, the one, the Redeemer Reborn. They named her Kaoru, as she had always been named each time she returned, and the abbey celebrated wildly for weeks.

The birth of the other child was also a healthy one. The tribe of Amazons was one of the largest and strongest, and they were waiting for one of their finest warriors to have her daughter. Many of the warrior women stood outside their chief's tent, impatient for news. The chief bore her child, assisted only by her mother, and was bitterly disappointed to find the child was male.

The newborn Kaoru would be showered with gifts from her people, and plans would be made for her future education and training, preparing her for her destiny.

As soon as she was strong enough to travel, the unwanted son of the Amazons was carried from the deep circles of the forest by his mother. The long journey would prove that it wasn't that she bore no thought for her boy, it was simply that there was no place for him in a society of women. She would carry him to the abbey at the center of the forest, and place him in the arms of a worthy woman. Then she would return to her people and think of him no more…

Very far away, on the other side of Kurisutaru, the Dark Seed sensed its old enemies' newborn cries, and it seethed in hatred. Its new roots digging strongly into the poisoned soil, it began to make the long journey through the earth, toward the surface and the sun.


	2. A Wandering Swordsman

2  
A Wandering Swordsman

Ikiro was thoroughly enjoying himself.

They barely tolerated his presence, of course, but they had to allow him to pass. Not without watchful guards, unseen in the shadows of the forest and the boughs of the trees. Still, as long as he stayed on the marked path, they couldn't object to him.

Rupta was an immense forest. Named for a great hero from the past, a youth who had gone on great adventures before the Ages of the Dark Seed. The abbey to which Ikiro traveled had at first been built to remember Rupta before it had become the place where the important Kamiya bloodline was kept sealed away, ensuring the safe birth of Kaoru each generation.

He snorted as he walked along, thinking of the trouble the abbey had caused. That very important bloodline was desperately thin, and had been for a few generations now. Down to its last trickle, Kaoru herself had been the last Kamiya child born, her mother dying before she could bear another. Now, as he had heard it, the Abbess was frantically searching for a wife for her father to continue on the line after Kaoru went on her journey. If they would just actually let the Kamiya line be a part of the rest of the world again, allowed the bloodline to spread out a bit, then there would be lots of relatives, many branches of the family tree for Kaoru to spring from.

Well, they had never listened to him before, and certainly wouldn't now.

Ikiro kept up a leisurely pace that he was sure infuriated the Amazons haunting his footsteps. Once, he had even sat down against a tree and took a nap, and smiled now at the audible curses that floated his way upon waking. _Sorry ladies, but it's a really long walk._ It wasn't called a "great" forest for nothing.

He was a small, thin man, and had boyish features that made him look much, much younger than his true age, a fact that both bothered and benefited him on many occasions. His wore his hair long, as was the style, and his dusty-brown locks were both wispy and kind of shaggy, tied into a high into a topknot. He was not unknown in this forest, nor at the abbey, though the turn of generation would greet him as a stranger.

He was just close enough to see the bell tower of the abbey when he sensed a new presence, bolder and more dominant than the flitting shadows of the Amazon wards. Curious, he slowed his pace until the man gained on him, then stopped and waited respectfully until the newcomer was near.

"Hello, Traveler," he said politely with a friendly smile. "I did not expect to see another male allowed through these particular woods."

"I'm a little surprised to see another here also," the man said. He was very tall, broadly built, and wore a heavy cloak about his shoulders. "I was born to the women who guard this forest and am a resident of Rupta Abbey; therefore, the women put up with my comings and goings. I am Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth."

"It is my honor to meet the successor of the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu. I am Inouye Ikiro. If you're headed to the abbey, we could walk together. I tire of only having only the silent thunder of the warrior-women as partner to conversation."

The two men fell into step together. "You surprise me again, Inouye-san," Hiko said. "Not many know of my title or my sword-style."

Ikiro shrugged. "Not many are as well-traveled as I am. I was born in this forest as well, but my mother, whoever she is, chose to carry me outside of Rupta to be raised."

"That's known to happen. Not all Amazons want their sons nearby."

Ikiro looked up, meeting Hiko in the eyes for the first time, and the larger man nearly stopped walking, his own eyes widening a bit.

Ikiro blinked. "Is there a problem, Hiko-san?"

"No. I was just surprised by the color of your eyes. …Purple."

Ikiro laughed. "Well. I've heard people describe them as violet, amethyst, and even someone who once called them 'heliotrope' but never once did anyone actually say they were purple!"

"I apologize if I've offended you. It's just that my idiot pupil also has eyes that color. I've never met anyone besides him who has such eyes."

"I see. Is your student also Amazon-born?"

"Yes."

Ikiro chuckled. "'_Purple'_ is actually a common eye color among them, the Amazons. Many of them have gold, emerald green, and every shade of blue eyes that you can imagine."

"You sound as if you've been among them."

"A few times. I did a special service for them years ago, and the honored me by ceremony before their council." Ikiro paused thoughtfully. "I always wondered which of the ladies was my mother, but of course, I never found out."

"You're a swordsman, I see," Hiko said, quickly changing the subject.

"A competent enough one," Ikiro agreed with a smile, glancing down at the katana held in his belt.

"Oh? Perhaps I could extend the hospitality of my home. My older sister--my stupid apprentice's mother--would be angry with me if I allowed a new face from the outside to pass by without allowing her a chance for fresh conversation. Not much ever changes in Rupta."

"I'd be honored. Although…this is the second time you've maligned your apprentice's intellect. Is he really stupid?"

It was really an rhetoric question, as logic clearly dictated that if Hiko would apprentice someone to learn the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu from him, he wouldn't really be an idiot.

He'd also meant for the question to be light, but Hiko was silent for several moments as their steps took them ever closer to their destination. His voice was gruff when he finally answered.

"He _is _stupid," he said, to Ikiro's surprise. "Stupidly brave, stupidly selfless, and stupidly honest."

"I see."

"You might really see, if you knew him. Once when he and Kaoru were small children, she wanted to run away from the forest and see the outside world. He couldn't dissuade her from going, so he had to at least go along to protect her. They were about six at the time. They actually got several miles from the abbey without either an abbey guard or Amazon ward noticing them, but were attacked by a family of bugbears."

Ikiro glanced at him, eyebrows raised. He watched as a smile warred with a scowl over Hiko's face. It was a draw; he walked with an odd expression of both for a moment before continuing.

"That was before I had begun training the boy. My sister had taught him to use the sling, and he used it to keep the bugbears at bay, flinging stones at their noses and eyes as they took shelter in a hollow tree until help arrived."

"That's amazing," Ikiro said, genuinely impressed. "A six-year-old fighting off an family of bugbears with little more than a sling and some stones?"

"Yes," Hiko said, the smile at last overcoming the scowl. "I was one of the ones who'd set out looking for the missing children. I came up late on them. Others had chased away the bugbears and had pulled the children from their hiding place. The boy was standing in front of Kaoru, still protecting her. Chin was up, chest out, placing the blame for their disappearance squarely on his own scrawny shoulders."

"I hope I get to meet your apprentice. He does sound very brave."

"Stupidly so, as I said."

Ikiro laughed again, just as the trees began to part into a vast clearing where the ancient stone abbey sprawled, sheltered by the forest. "A friend and protector of Kaoru herself. One would almost think the boy believes he is Battousai."

He looked to Hiko, expecting the larger man to smile back at the his joke. A smirk came, but perhaps just a half second too late to be natural…

"Well, Kaoru has a small, tight-knit circle of protectors among the children who grew up with her, not just my student. This is my sister's home."

Ikiro, who had been intent on Hiko's words, allowed his eyes to move to the cabin Hiko indicated. His first surprise was a vague one, that the residence was actually outside the protective walls of the abbey, but this thought was quickly overtaken by the bursting sight of the entire surroundings of the little cabin. Flowers, flowers everywhere, of all colors, kinds, shapes, and sizes. More sorts of flowers than Ikiro had ever seen, never mind the great quantity.

He was almost afraid to walk through the beautiful, elaborate garden, but allowed Hiko to show him where the thoughtfully-placed stepping stones marking a path safely through the flowers. Ikiro followed behind the larger man, casting one last glance at the abbey gates, just a dozen yards away, now seeming extremely drab next to the festive colors exploding over the cabin. He was in no hurry; he had very much become interested in Hiko Seijuro's family.

Just as he was hoping Hiko's sister was a good cook, he stepped through the open door and was washed over with the scents of simmering food. The inside of the cabin seemed larger than the outside had suggested. It was interesting that the place wasn't decorated with some of the flowers from the outside. Instead, it was cluttered, though nonetheless clean, with items of steadfast usefulness. Bookshelves, tables, beds, and racks or hooks filled with items and weapons, mostly swords and staves.

It kind of looked like an Amazon's home, and Ikiro was again surprised when an actual Amazon greeted them.

"Sister, I'm home," Hiko said.

"So I see. Did you remember to piss on the warding post?"

Hiko rolled his eyes heavenward. "Damn it, Woman. Why can I not come from a long journey into my own home without you bothering me about pissing on warding posts?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Did you or did you not pay a visit to the tombs on the way back?"

"Of course," Hiko said through very clenched teeth.

"Then get back outside and ward off the spirits who may have followed you home."

Ikiro, forgotten, stood uncomfortably by the doorjamb while Hiko and his sister glared at each other for several long seconds until finally the comely woman noticed him. Evidentally deciding to end the argument, she smiled sweetly. "Seijuro, my sweet little brother…do you _want _your dinner tonight?"

Hiko glared another moment at his sister before giving a short, defeated sigh and moving past Ikiro, back outside into the fields of flowers.

"Well?"

Ikiro turned back to the Amazon, who was looking at him with expectant impatience. "Have you visited any tombs, catacombs, or graveyards in the last Sevenday?" she demanded.

"N-no, but I could still--uh…if I really need to--"

"No, if you haven't visited the dead recently, there's no need. Forgive my rudeness, but it was important. My name is Himura Natsu, formally of the Ruto Tribe."

She was a small woman, but her short arms and legs were rounded and strong. She had a gentle, almost sweet face, and her hair was plaited into a thick braid that fell well past the middle of her back. Her garb was an artful mix of woven cloth and wolf's fur, her small feet bare, braided bracelets tied around her ankles and wrists. For a "former" Amazon, she certainly still looked the part.

"Inouye Ikiro," he introduced himself with a bow.

Her face suddenly changed. "Ikiro-san! I remember you! You're the one who helped rid my people of the Plague of Living Death."

"Oh. Well." Ikiro smiled, rubbing the back of his head. "That was quite some time ago. I'm surprised anyone even remembers it."

"It's hard to forget something like that! You're certainly welcome in my home."

The two of them turned as Hiko made his way back into the house, this time followed by a much smaller young man of perhaps eighteen years.

"Ikiro-san, this is my son, Himura Kenshin," Natsu said, pushing the boy forward. He stared at Ikiro with a mixture of interest and guardedness with eyes that were indeed deep violet, like Ikiro's own. His hair was long and hid much of his face, falling down his back from the low ponytail that loosely held it. It was lustrously red, like fire, like blood.

More words were spoken, but for some reason Ikiro's own heartbeat blunted out the words as he stared at the boy. His coloring, his small size…it reminded him of someone…

"Ikiro-san?"

He started, realizing that everyone was staring at him with concern.

He tried to smile. "I'm sorry. It's been a really long journey--"

"Oh! That's right. Kenshin, I think it would be best if our guest shared your room for the time being. Would you show him the way and help him get settled while I get dinner?"

"Of course, Mama," Kenshin said. "This way, Inouye-san."

Ikiro's feet followed the boy past a small living area to his bedroom. "I can borrow an extra futon from the abbey, Inouye-san."

"That's…fine, ah…Kenshin. I don't need one. I usually sleep sitting up."

The boy's brown furrowed a moment, as if he hadn't considered such a thing. Still, he didn't seem to find it strange, merely nodding and glancing at the doorway before asking if Ikiro needed anything else.

"No, I'm fine, than you."

Kenshin smiled, again increasing Ikiro's feelings of familiarity. "Forgive me if I stare, but I've never seen a stranger before. Where do you come from, Inouye-san?"

"Oh, far away. I wander rather aimlessly most of the time, though I admit I did turn my feet to this particular place because I knew the festival celebrating the birth of the Redeemer was to be held here soon."

"Yes, Kaoru's birthday celebration will be soon. You travel, Inouye-san?"

The question was simple, but echoed in the young man's eyes. It wasn't youthful eagerness, but rather a controlled longing. Kenshin wanted to leave Rupta someday, but was also just as content to stay. The tranquil duality was…refreshing. Ikiro felt some of his apprehensions melt away as he realized that he was starting to like the boy.

Smiling at him for the first time, Ikiro explained, "It's not exactly traveling. When one travels, one usually has a destination in mind. I just kind of wander around without one. I'm a wandering swordsman with no destination: a rurouni."


	3. An Old Story

Author's Note:

(-grin!-) _Been a lot time since I've updated this poor, neglected fic. Been so busy with my other projects that this one got put so far on the back burner that it got knocked right off the stove. But I have not forgotten it, and was in the mood for some fantasy, so…

* * *

_

3  
An Old Story

"_You're going to pay, Battousai!"_

_He tried his best to stop trembling. It got them more excited because it made him look like he was afraid. He wasn't afraid, not exactly. Not in the way they thought he was._

_He couldn't keep still because he was in pain. The broken collar bone hurt, but more than that, the shoulder wound. His clothing was ripped away from his skin, soaked with his blood, and the skin was ripped away from sheets of raw nerves and muscle, exposing it to the air. It was by far the most serious wound he had ever suffered._

_Of course, that pain was about to seem as nothing, he reflected grimly, as bundles of dry sticks were piled around the stake to which he was so tightly trussed._

_He sadly scanned the crowd, their jeers and taunts single-minded and monotonous and derivative as the stones they sometimes threw. They shouted the same things over and over. "You'll pay!" was the favorite cry._

_Pay for what, though? He had never been to this village, and it was located too far away from any of the fighting for anything he had ever done to actually affect any of them. No, this blood-lusty little town was merely excited to get ahold of the badly-injured Battousai, excited to place a painful death upon him, and most of all excited to recount the tale until it spread everywhere, the name of their village and its "heroes" spun into legends for years to come. This was not for revenge nor for punishment. This was for sport and recognition and commerce._

_It was perhaps closer to murder than anything _he _had done, but he was not one to judge such things. It was one thing for him to feel that perhaps he deserved death, but his imagination had been led down more justifiable means like on the end of another's weapon, of cold or starvation, or of infected wounds, or drowning or plague._

_He never expected to be burned to death by a vicious small town._

_Already his ears could pick up their words as they tried to get their story straight. History would say this town bested him, not the truth that they had cornered him in the forest, weak from injuries, blood loss, and thirst after fighting that dragon…what had been that dragon's name? T'Sa-ni, or something like that. The scaly monster had underestimated him because of his small size and weak appearance, thought him a good snack. He had kept up the fight because he knew this village was nearby, and T'Sa-ni would surely pick it clean and then crush it to ashes._

_In the end, the dragon flew away, with one talon less than before it had challenged him. Of course, he had been badly injured too._

_This wasn't exactly the most grateful town he'd ever protected, to be certain. These people were ignorant, the lack of education in everything from extremely poor hygiene to exceptionally poor speech, and poverty could be taken in of its condition in every sense. They were even going to eat that dragon's talon that had been left behind. He supposed that being the town that killed Battousai would only bring better things their way._

_He had been willing to risk his life to protect theirs, but he wasn't willing to die to bring them affluence. He tried to get his feet under him, but they were tied around the pole, so that most of his weight was centered on the painful area of his shoulders. They were too good at this not to have burned people alive before._

_Devastatingly barbaric. Perhaps he should have just let the damn dragon eat everyone in this town after all._

_He let out a long breath, watching with sorrowful eyes as they came forward with torches, laughing lightly like this was some sort of festival event. Even had he known this was going to happen, he would still not have allowed T'Sa-ni to destroy them. Could he have changed anything, he would have found a better way to hide himself until he gained enough strength to move on. He'd just never thought they would do something like this after he went through so much to save them._

_But…he was young and this was just another lesson in trust and treachery that he'd just learned…not that he would live long enough for the new knowledge to become new wisdom._

_He was going to die. Very, very horribly._

_His vision blurred a little as they set fire to the dry sticks and tufts of straw piled around him. Maybe…he was still bleeding, so maybe he would bleed to death before the fire became too painful…_

_At first, he didn't notice the young voice that was calling out. It had just been mixed in with the other noises in the crowd. But the voice got louder, as its owner forced her way through._

_The flames spread quickly, eating away at its dry fuel and rising higher as she shouldered her way through and ran up to the sticks._

_She was very young. Ten or eleven at most. A determined face and large, flashing sapphire eyes. She stared at him in outrage and pity for a mere second or so before turning to the crowd. "You can't do this! He's just a little boy!"_

_Fire licked at his legs, burning his clothes as he looked at the swinging ponytail of the girl. He was seventeen…had not considered himself a "little boy" in a long while. But he found, as the fire began to eat away at him, that her words helped his heart some. Somebody cared. At least one person, this little girl, didn't hate him… He didn't deserve her kindness, but it was nice… He was so very grateful._

"_He's only a child! You can't burn a child!" she shouted again. They weren't listening. If anything, she was only adding to their amusement. He hoped she would be turned away before he could no longer keep back the screams already bubbling up inside him, taken away by her parents or some of the other adults before his form became something to haunt her nightmares._

_He had most certainly not expected her to turn suddenly, reach down and pick up a sharp stone, and then leap into the flames with him!  
_

_She hissed and shrieked as the tongues of fire licked her bare feet and legs, but she didn't stop coming, climbing the sticks to him._

"What are you doing_?" he screamed at her._

_Tears streamed down her face as she began hacking at his ropes with the stone. "I won't let them burn you!"_

"_No, please stop! Please, get away!"_

_She ignored him, kept hacking at the ropes. Sometimes she missed in her frenzy and hit his arms instead._

_Desperately, he looked out into the crowd. Why wouldn't anyone move? Why wouldn't anyone drag the little girl to safety? He expected no mercy for himself, but how much compassion did it take to save one of their own? To save a little girl?_

_A shadow fell over them, and he looked up along with everyone else. A moment of utter disbelief, drowning out the flames and the shocked gasp of a foolish girl-child trying to follow him into a fiery death. The sun was engulfed in the black silhouette of dragon's wings._

_T'Sa-ni arched downward, landing with earth-shaking weight, scattering the crowd and trampling a few of them beneath his feet._

_The wind from his wings and his landing had sputtered out most of the fire, but that was hardly a concern anymore. The girl still wouldn't move, twisting her hands in what was left of his smoldering and shredded clothing as she looked on the dragon in horror._

_He had no more time to think as T'Sa-ni's ruby eyes, set in a black-scaled face bunched together in rage, turned to see him. His remaining talons raised, gleaming in the sunlight--_

Kenshin jerked back, fumbling from his knees and onto his feet. His back hit into the wall so violently it almost took his breath.

He sucked in air raggedly, only dimly becoming aware of someone speaking quietly to him from across the room.

Very slowly, awareness came back to him. He suffered a short moment of embarrassment as he realized it was the guest who was talking to him. Ikiro sat on the other end of Kenshin's room, just inside the moonlight coming from the window.

"Are you all right now, Kenshin?"

Kenshin cleared his throat, settling back down. He had actually tried to sleep sitting up this night, like Ikiro, just to see what it was like. To his surprise, he had taken easily enough to it. It had almost felt…familiar, like he'd done it all his life…

He had not expected to have such a vivid dream in what he thought would be an less comfortable position.

"I…I'm all right, Inouye-san," he whispered. Without realizing what he was doing, he allowed a hand to drift up to touch his shoulder.

It was whole, untorn, but he felt the ghost of pain there still. He pushed his hand under his sleeping robe and felt the unmarred skin. It had seemed so real…of being terribly hurt, the tongues of the fire…and Kaoru.

He shuddered.

"Kenshin?" Ikiro's eyes were soft and concerned in the darkness. "What did you dream?"

The question was gentle, but there was the subtle push of command in it. Well-used to being ordered about in the same delicate manner by the ones who'd raised him, Kenshin answered.

"Some people were trying to burn me at the stake," he said quietly, a little shaken by how the feelings of horror lingered. "And I dreamed Kaoru was trying to save me."

"Oh," Ikiro said. There was a pause. "Kenshin…was there a dragon?"

He started. "Yes. How did you…?"

"That's an old story."

"Old story?"

"Yes. You know, of the first time Kaoru met Battousai. The First Kaoru and First Battousai. You must have heard the story…that's why the dusty corners of your mind dragged it up and made you dream, eh?"

"No…no I've never heard a story of anyone trying to burn Battousai."

There was another pause. "Oh," Ikiro said again, his voice very low. Then, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Why would I dream _I _was Battousai?"

Ikiro shoulders lifted slightly. "Didn't you, ah…imitate him when you were a child, wave around a stick like a sword and pretend to fight the Dark Seed? Not many little boys don't dream of being the Hero of the Redeemer."

Kenshin blinked at the fast and slightly raised voice of Ikiro. It sort of seemed like the older man was trying to convince him of something.

And, well, Kenshin never had pretended to be Battousai, though he knew lots of children in Rupta did, boys and girls alike. He never had the urge. Besides, he had a feeling it bothered Kaoru some, when the other children had done that. Kenshin was already training to be a swordsman. Someday becoming Hiko Seijuro the Fourteenth was a destiny in itself.

"It's odd though…how I dreamed Kaoru was so much younger than I. She and I are the same age…and aren't she and Battousai supposed to be too? Born on the same day, at the same moment."

"Yes," Ikiro said softly. "But not the first time. The first time they lived, Battousai was ten or eleven years older than Kaoru."

"But…the things they were shouting. The villagers, trying to hurt him…they were treating him like he was--"

"Kenshin, it was only a dream," Ikiro said with he same soft force of command he had used before.

So much like Natsu, who pushed down questions about his dreams when he nightmared before. "Dreams don't mean anything more than your imagination," she'd say. "You have better things to do than worry about your dreams."

Just a little too loud, and a little too fast came her words, like Ikiro's now.

"Kaoru's celebration will be in the morning," Ikiro said, his voice toned down but cheerful. "We should get some more sleep, because likely it'll last on into the next night. Doesn't it?"

"Yes…usually," Kenshin said.

Still sitting up against the wall, Kenshin slept again, eventually He didn't know Ikiro still watched him through the dark.

A time passed, and Ikiro got up, silently closing the space between himself and Kenshin. Gently, he took the slightly smaller young man by the shoulders and lowered him from the wall to the floor, deftly snatching the pillow atop the unused futon and slipping it under the boy's head. He stepped back smoothly. Kenshin didn't stir.

Ikiro looked down on him another moment. "You had a longer childhood this time. I'm…glad. Let's stretch it out as long as possible. You don't need to dream anymore. Not right now."

The next morning, the dream seemed to have disappeared from Kenshin's mind, and so it almost had from Ikiro as he watched the boy with his friends.

Ikiro had been an attraction in himself as a seldom-seen stranger. In fact, there was an entire generation that had never see anyone outside of Rupta. He was surrounded by kids and asked questions until his tongue went dry, but they were so overjoyed for news and new stories that he couldn't bear to turn them away.

It was Kenshin who saved him, with a smile and a simple sentence: "If you'll all get on the merry-go-round, I'll come and push."

His offer was met with a deafening roar and a stampede toward a strange little platform that Ikiro had mistakenly thought to be a circular bench.

On a real bench, Ikiro sat and watched as Kenshin grasped hold of the metal rails and ran with the merry-go-round. The children all held on, shrieking with laughter as the great toy turned faster and faster, until finally Kenshin's feet left the ground and he jumped on, his hair trailing behind him and his own laughter joining theirs.

_He likes to play_, Ikiro, his eyes softening as he watched Kenshin jump off to push again when the merry-go-round slowed.

He tore his eyes from the happy scene to move his gaze over the rest of the abbey. Flyers and streamers were everywhere, lots of flags sewn of the brightest colors. There were so many flowers, most likely donated by his hostess. Like some sort of holiday rather than someone's birthday, he saw people exchanging gifts with each other.

"Kenshinnnn!"

Ikiro looked up in time to see a fetching young girl with bright sapphire eyes followed closely by a couple of boys he guessed to be around ten or so. Just behind them jogged a very tall, long-limbed young man with jutting spikes of hair.

"Kaoru," Ikiro murmured, recognizing her.

It had been quite a number of years, but she still looked the same. Of course she would. She was the same person…only she wouldn't remember, of course.

He decided it best not to mention that he had known her in her life before her current one as she, with Kenshin and the other three boys, walked toward him. For all his hard running and play Kenshin had neither broken a sweat or lost his breath, Ikiro noticed, before being introduced to what was probably a very, very tight-knit little group of friends.

The two youngsters were introduced as stepbrothers, Yahiko and Yutaro, the tall boy around the same age as Kenshin and Kaoru was called Sanosuke.

Ikiro smiled at them, liking the way they stood together, like an enclosing circle protecting Kaoru. He hoped their journey together--and he had very little doubt it would be these boys Kaoru took with her on her someday--would be brighter and happier than the last one had been…

"You're a rurouni?" the dark-haired kid, Yahiko asked excitedly. "You travel around and see lots of places, huh?"

"That's right," Ikiro said, smiling at the boy.

"I want to leave the forest someday, too! Only Sano's seen the outside."

"Is that so?"

The tall boy rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, well…I didn't come here until I was three or four. I don't really remember all that much."

Such was the conversation after that, questions about what it was like outside. Ikiro answered, for the most part until the feast was called. He was vaguely surprised that, while Sanosuke and the two boys left without hesitation, Kaoru and Kenshin declined to join the feast.

"But aren't you the one it's to honor?"

Kenshin and Kaoru exchanged a glance before Kaoru turned back to Ikiro, a small smile on her lips. "They won't even notice I'm not there."

* * *

Kaoru's statement had not been a prediction, but simple past experience.

Indeed as Ikiro sat sampling the abbey's food, as wonderful as he remembered it being, no one had noticed that the girl whose birthday they were supposed to be celebrating was not there.

_A holiday, not a birthday_, he thought again with a rueful smile. This probably bothered the hell out of Kaoru, and if she was anything like the girl he had known before, she probably vented this to Kenshin at this very moment.

He didn't know where they were exactly. They were both trained in sword-arts, and were more disciplined than most of the people that sat around him. He supposed he could find them if he stretched out his senses enough, but around all these people, and the Amazons who had crept closer to watch the festivities, that would have been more exhausting than it was worth.

He suddenly felt very old, watching these people. The children. Especially Kenshin and his friends. They were so…different than he had expected they would be.

They didn't know. They didn't know anything, really. Not yet.

Ikiro had never believed the old saying about ignorance and bliss before, but now he thought perhaps whoever had first said it was on to something. Innocence was such a fragile thing. Ikiro didn't even remember having much of it himself. Perhaps raising Kaoru in this abbey again and again wasn't such a bad thing. But there was still the problem of the meager trickle that the Kamiya bloodline had become. He was dismayed to learn that Kaoru had lost her mother a few short years after her own birth, and did not have one sibling to carry on the line. Their only real hope, then, was to have Kaoru's father remarry and have another child before he was too old to do so. Unfortunately, that man had been deeply in love with his wife and had been stubbornly putting it off…

What, Ikiro wondered, did they think would happen when the line died out completely? The best they could hope for would be for Kaoru to spring from the lines of distant relatives, but it had been a long time, and there was no guarantee that the blood would be strong enough in any other line but Kamiya. What if someday she was barred from reentering the world through her own blood? Then where would they be?

In the Seed's grasp, more than likely. Battousai was powerful, but he couldn't do it alone. His job was to protect Kaoru. Kaoru's was to vanquish the Seed. That was how it worked.

Depressed now, Ikiro sipped at his tea. The abbess now was a friendly-faced young woman who seemed cheerful and easily pleased, not at all like the Amazon-born hotheaded abbot he'd had to deal with the last time he had come to Rupta. Nonetheless, a few centuries of tradition wouldn't be easy to break. He wasn't looking forward to pleading his case for spreading the World Redeemer's blood around.

And even if she saw reason, there was only Kaoru's father to work with. Ikiro sighed.

It was getting entirely too difficult to keep the world safe these days.


End file.
